I hope you’re all having fun, getting ready to celebrate the upcoming holidays, at least those of you who celebrate. We’re gearing up for our first hard freeze. It’s supposed to drop into the mid- to upper- teens tomorrow night. As I write this, it’s nearly 4:30 in the afternoon, and the temp is currently 34 degrees (F). As a matter of fact, I went to the store today and when I got back, we had a very light dusting of snow falling. Not enough to stick, and the flakes were barely more than droplets of mist. But for someone who has lived most of his life in the Houston area, it was definitely noticeable.

Our forecast says that tomorrow’s hard freeze will be 16 to 18 degrees, with a “real feel” down into the single digits. Yeah, I think I’ll be laying another fire tonight. LOL

The writing is going pretty well, though preparations for the holidays do interfere some. End Point Pangaea is moving along, slowly but surely. As you can see in the meter to the right, I’ve cracked the projected 50% mark, having broken 41k of an estimated 80k goal.

Additionally, there is a new meter over there, entitled “Sekrit Projekt – FSJ”. This one is a gamble. It may pan out, it may not. But it promises to be a LOT of fun if it does, and even though I can’t say any more about it than that, I hope you’ll keep your fingers crossed for me.

And that’s it. I’m going to cut this post short and get back to writing. So stay safe, and I’ll talk to you next time.

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Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving – at least, those of you who celebrated it last week. My Canadian friends are likely looking down here to the US thinking, late to the party again, eh? (Heavy emphasis on the “eh”.) But for those of us here in the US, we just finished our Thanksgiving, and immediately began the after-party madness that is Christmas decorating.

Yep, MBH is a traditionalist. The day after Thanksgiving is always the day we put up Christmas decorations. Honestly, I would probably be a bit of a Scrooge if not for her, but I love seeing how happy it makes her to put up the tree, and garland, and the lights and all the admitted cheeriness that also is Christmas decorating. And she does a great job with it (and I’m not just saying that because I know she’ll read this later.) I mean, just look at the tree!

Of course, for the girls, the tree is just something new for them to sniff at and figure out. Is it an intruder? A piece of furniture? A chew toy? And evidently, at least part of it fell into the latter category. I had to take MBH’s car into the dealership yesterday to address a recall on the rear suspension. Five hours after they started the two and a half hour job, I finally got out of there, only to come home and find that some of the insides of the new tree skirt, had mysteriously migrated to the outside of the new tree skirt.

Yeah, see that puff of white in the bottom of the pic there? And if you look closely, you’ll see a little more back behind the tree, and the little tear where the skirt spontaneously erupted, spewing its guts onto the floor. When I walked into the house and saw it, of course I wondered aloud what had happened.

And for some strange reason, when I asked Cricket about it, she immediately rolled onto her back. I could almost hear her telling me, “Really Dad! It jumped up and attacked me! It was all self-defense! Honest!” It was all I could do not to laugh at her attempts to apologize.

As for writing news…

Y12 –Year 12 has gone through two rounds with the editor and it off to the final proofreader. After that, it comes back here, where I add the front and back matter (dedication, acknowledgements, etc.) and then send it off for formatting. And at that point, it should be ready to publish. Woot!

Oh! And speaking of Year 12, I let those of you on my mailing list get a sneak peek at the cover a couple of weeks ago. For those of you who aren’t on the list, I guess I can finally let you take a look, as well. Here are all three titles in the Half Past Midnight universe, so you can see them all together.

Hat tip to Glendon Haddix at Streetlight Graphics, for the outstanding cover work. He did all three covers here, as well as much of the work on my Streets of Payne covers.

EPP – End Point Pangaea is back on the front burner as my primary WIP. I stumbled for a few days after being away from it while working on Y12 edits and then the holidays. When you’re gone from something like that for a while, you tend to forget the characters and plot twists that you’re trying to weave through the story. So it took me a couple of days to regain the momentum. But I’m back in, and the story is flowing well, once more.

CL – Crazy Larry is a planned novella I’m working on. It’s another HPM title – the story of what happened to Larry Troutman after Leeland left him on D-day. So far, I’m about 8000 words into it. And while it’s planned as a novella, it’s beginning to feel as if it might just be a bit shorter. I’ll just have to see where the story takes me.

And that’s it for now. Time to get back to work. So stay safe, and I’ll talk to you next time.

Thanks to all of my friends and family who have been there for me and mine. Thanks to all of you who have seen fit to buy one of my books, left a kind word or review, or given me advice and encouragement.

And even to those of you who disagree with me and tell me I’m wrong, misguided, or flat-out crazy. You give me perspective, so thank you.

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All right, I’ve always promised you that I wouldn’t get political here on the blog. So here’s all I’ll say about yesterday’s election…

Thank Ghu, it’s over. Hmmm… that makes a pretty good acronym – TGIO! Maybe I could start a new trend… hashtag TGIO. Before you know it, we’ll be seeing #TGIO all over the internet. You think?

No? (sigh)

All right. Then on with the writing news, and it’s going to be a quick post, because I still have a LOT of work to do.

CV1 – As you can see, I just got the completed cover art for the print version of Chucklers: Volume 1 and I’m really happy with how it turned out. The folks at Severed did an amazing job. In other news, I just saw that CV1 got its first review, and it’s a 5-star! Woohoo! So thank you, “Emmet”, whoever you are. I’m glad you liked it.

Y12 – Year 12 edits are ongoing, slower than I would like, but that’s mainly due to me getting distracted by life. Every time I get on a roll, I end up having to review this, or approve that. It’s almost like this writing stuff is a job, or something. But for the moment, rolling through the Y12 edits is my main priority. However, I did manage to shoot out a quick cover reveal of the Y12 cover today. If you’re on the mailing list, you should already have it in your mailbox. If you aren’t, well, first of all, why aren’t you? And secondly, maybe I’ll give you a peek at it next week.

And that’s it for now. Like I said, lots of work to do…

So stay safe, and I’ll talk to you again next time.

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I’m in a little bit of a lull, as far as the work load goes. I’m sure it won’t last long, but there are no immediate, pressing deadlines overhead at the moment. The Burning Land is out… Chucklers – Book 1 is with the publisher… Year 12 is with the editor… and there’s no one depending on me to get anything done with my writing at the moment.

It’s an odd feeling. Sure, I’m still working on End Point Pangaea, and there’s a certain amount of urgency to get it done, but it’s not like things have been for the last several weeks, where there are people waiting on me to get something done before the titles can be released. For once, no one is waiting on me.

Of course, that will change as soon as Severed sends me the final (or what I hope will be the final) .mobi file for CB1, or when I get back editorial notes on Y12. Hopefully, the CB1 file will be problem free, and can then be released. And the edits for Y12 will likely take a week or two, but for now, it looks like the main project is going to be EPP.

There’s a certain amount of relief in the knowledge that it’s not all waiting on me, at the moment.

So, what else is going on? Hmmm…

Oh! My first horror short story, Ghost Story, is free for the next five days, (though at a bit over 15,000 words, it’s technically it’s a novelette, not a short story.) According to the Hugo and Nebula awards:

… a “short story” is 7,500 words or less

… a “novelette” is 7,501 to 17,500 words

… a “novella” is 17,501 t0 40,000 words AND

… a “novel” is 40,001 words or more

Yeah, aren’t you thrilled?

Now, hang on while I grab a copy of the cover to insert into this post……

Okay, I’m back. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, Ghost Story is free. I figured it would be a good Halloween read, so if any of you are looking for a something to give you a few chills for the holiday, grab a free copy. And if you’re so inclined, leave a review. Just be aware that it’s not like most of my other published titles to date. After all, it’s HORROR!

And now for something completely different… I got a nice email out of the blue last week, from one of the honchos at Telemachus, the company that published my first novel, Half Past Midnight. He was writing to let me know that, though the company had published the novel a few years back, he had recently re-read it for pleasure, rather than work, and said that he had greatly enjoyed it. I can’t tell you how much a kind message like that means to a struggling author. It’s a really nice shot in the arm.

But that’s it for now. I’m going to keep this post short, and get back to work on EPP. Because, despite what I said about not being rushed at the moment, once those edits come back to me, I’ll once more be working under pressure. And the more I can get done on the novel before that happens, the less stress I’ll have to deal with then.